


(You Feel Like) The Sun On My Face

by dressedupasmyself



Series: 30 Days of Klaroline (June 2020) [4]
Category: Legacies (TV 2018), The Originals (TV), The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Blood Sharing, F/M, Future Fic, Hope is all grown up, Italy, Klaus doesn't like it, Parent Caroline Forbes, Parent Klaus Mikaelson, Protective Klaus Mikaelson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-04
Updated: 2020-06-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:54:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24536521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dressedupasmyself/pseuds/dressedupasmyself
Summary: “Klaus.”The hybrid barely glanced her way, fingers tight around the windpipe of a terrified delivery driver.“Now is not a good time.”Caroline crossed her arms, her chin lifting in defiance. “And when would be a better time? When you’re eating the gardener?”
Relationships: Caroline Forbes/Klaus Mikaelson
Series: 30 Days of Klaroline (June 2020) [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1770547
Comments: 4
Kudos: 170





	(You Feel Like) The Sun On My Face

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from the song "Favourite Place" by All Time Low. 
> 
> Let's all just collectively squint around the massive chunks of canon plot I've chosen to ignore completely, shall we?

It was Hope who called her.

“Caroline, I’m twenty-seven.”

“I’m aware.”

“I’m getting married in two months.” Hope’s voice sounded strangely desperate. “I wouldn’t ask this of you, but you might just be the only chance I have of not losing my mind.”

Caroline set down the novel she was reading. Hope had a lot of her father in her. Asking for help, even from Caroline, wasn’t normal. “Is something wrong? Should I call your dad?”

“No, fuck.” The frustrated swear caught Caroline off guard. “Did you know that he spends almost all of his time crawling around my apartment complex like a creep?”

“I didn’t know that.” She wasn’t entirely surprised, either. “Did you talk to him about it?”

“Of course I did. He thinks I’m too young to be making ‘major life decisions’ or ‘living on my own’.”

Caroline snorted. “That’s because he’s, like, a bajillion years old and has lost sight of what it means to age.”

Hope’s tone softened. “Could you talk to him? Please? I don’t want to have to explain to my _husband_ why there’s a furious hybrid outside, growling at our guests and listening in on our every conversation.”

“I’ll try,” Caroline said. “I can’t guarantee that he’ll listen.”

“He will.” Hope sounded sure. “He respects your opinion.”

“Klaus.”

The hybrid barely glanced her way, fingers tight around the windpipe of a terrified delivery driver.

“Now is not a good time.”

Caroline crossed her arms, her chin lifting in defiance. “And when would be a better time? When you’re eating the gardener?”

Klaus’s jaw tightened, but he let the man go. He slid down the wall, hands immediately drawn to his neck as he gasped for air. Klaus spun around, and Caroline wasn’t prepared for his full attention on her.

It had been too long since a time when she was used to the terrifying focus in his baby blues.

“What do you want, Caroline?”

She took slow steps, circling around him. “Your daughter called me.”

His eyes blazed. “Why?”

Caroline didn’t immediately answer, first crouching in front of the driver to inspect his neck. He had a bruised trachea, so she neatly bit into her wrist to heal him.

“You’re being a stalker.”

“ _Thirty years_ I’ve kept her safe,” Klaus started pacing, fury sprawled all over his face. “I will not allow anyone to hurt her now, not when she’s finally happy and has a chance to be successful and get everything she’s ever wanted.”

Caroline compelled the driver, allowing Klaus his moment of anger.

“Not to mention that she’s chosen to shack up with a _human_ who will barely be able to hold his own against a _lapdog_ , nevermind any actual threats.”

The driver staggered off, leaving them alone. Caroline stood, and in a flash she was right in front of Klaus, her curls almost tickling his nose.

“Hope is a witch, and a wolf, and a vampire. Do you really think that just because she’s a woman she needs to marry someone who’ll be more capable of protecting her than she herself is?”

Klaus bristled, nostrils flaring. “It’s not because she’s a _woman_. It’s because she’s _my daughter_.”

Caroline felt her anger deflate at the obvious fear she could read all over his face.

“What is your plan, Klaus?” she asked, gentler now. “Are you going to lurk within breathing range of her for the rest of her life? Do you plan on listening to her having sex? What if she gets into a fight with her husband, are you going to burst in and kill him because he didn’t do the dishes?”

Klaus was barely even breathing now, and Caroline took it as a good sign.

“I understand that it’s hard. I get that it’s scary. But you have to see it in perspective. This,” she gestured down at her body, “is _seventeen_ years old. How old were you when you turned?”

“Twenty-four.” The words were barely audible, but Caroline’s hearing was better than most.

“Exactly.” She stepped even closer. “Hope is already older than both of us were when we got buried up to eye-level in war and bloodshed. And she’s not leaving you to hide in Romania where you’ll never see her again, while killing witches willy-nilly and having seven revenge plots against her at any given moment. She’s trying to _start a family_. Why don’t you trust her, just a little bit?”

“Caroline.” Her name was a growl, forced out between his teeth. “Do you understand what you’re asking of me?”

“Of course I do.” She took his face between her hands, and his own came up to circle her wrists in an iron grip. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

He must have seen something on her face, because he closed his eyes and let his forehead rest against hers. It was the closest to surrender she was likely to get with him, so she took a step back.

Her smile was teasing once he looked at her again. “I believe you promised to show me Rome?”

They’d finished a pizza and a few bottles of wine, and Caroline was feeling as content as ever, sprawled flat on her back in the Tuscan sunshine. She missed the warmth that came from feeling the sun on her skin.

Her daylight ring protected her like a shield, and while she would be eternally grateful for the freedom it gave her during the day, she couldn’t help but feel a little cold most of the time.

She’d been too lazy to join Klaus when he suggested a hunt, so she’d chosen to wait for him at their picnic spot. He’d been tenser than usual the entire week, but there were moments when they were admiring an old building, or when she was doing something ridiculous, when he would smile or laugh at her, and it almost felt like everything was okay between them.

It wasn’t, of course, not yet. There was a lot of history between them, too much to give them the option of moving on without a discussion.

She heard his heartbeat when he got to the foot of the hill, and within seconds he was beside her again. His cheeks were flushed with blood, and he regarded her with amused eyes.

“You missed out. Italians have a lot of flavour.”

She stretched out lazily. “I cannot be bothered to move right now.”

He sat down, closer than he’d been the entire trip.

“I didn’t consider your daughters.”

“What?” She blinked up at him, trying to adapt to his sudden change of mood.

“You’ve let them go.”

She sighed. So much for a Sunday-afternoon nap. She sat up and turned so she could look at him properly.

“They call me every three days, and I visit often. They will always be a part of me, but yes, I leave them be until they ask for help.”

“How did you manage it?”

Caroline thought back to nights spent pacing up and down Bonnie’s living room in an attempt to ease her worry. Days when she would sit outside of Lizzie’s office building or in the parking lot while Josie did her shopping. It became truly ridiculous, until she saw Lizzie mugged one day on the street. She hadn’t even hung up her phone call, dealing with him swiftly before moving on with an annoyed flip of her hair.

Caroline had never been so proud.

“I would have lost them if I hadn’t,” she said, and the very thought still made her heart clench unpleasantly. “They’re adults now. I have to trust that they’ll come to me if they’re in trouble, and if they don’t, it’s their call.”

“Hope was all I had, for a while. I don’t want to admit that she doesn’t need me anymore. What would my purpose in her life be, other than to stifle her?”

Klaus looked so hopeless, and Caroline realised that for all his thousand years on earth, this was still his first time as a parent.

“She’ll always need you, Klaus. You’re her dad.”

“I didn’t need mine.”

“You did, and he failed you.”

Klaus met her eyes. “I never wanted that for Hope.”

“I think you succeeded.”

They didn’t say anything for a few seconds, and Klaus’s gaze dropped to her neck.

“You’re hungry.”

Caroline sighed. “I’m sure we’ll pass some unfortunate grocery store cashier or receptionist on the way to the hotel.”

He bared his wrist to her, and Caroline’s eyes widened at the blatant show of trust.

“It’s nothing you haven’t done before, love.”

It was the nickname that ultimately cracked her resolve.

He tasted the way she remembered. Not being on the brink of death and filled with fear and anger and confused feelings changed the experience, and when her eyes locked onto his she knew that things were different now.

They were both different, but still so very much alike.

He only tugged his arm away from her when she’d had her fill, and the atmosphere between them was positively static. She didn’t know what to say in fear of shattering the delicate peace.

“How am I going to let you walk away from me again?” Klaus asked, voice rough.

Caroline liked her freedom. She liked that she wasn’t trapped in Mystic Falls, but could return whenever she chose. She liked that she had the world at her feet and that she was strong enough to make sure she got what she wanted.

But she liked the way Klaus looked at her, too. She liked the warmth of him in her veins and pressed against her side. She liked knowing that if she asked, she’d never have to go home to an empty house again.

She’d had thirty years and two daughters to convince her that life is too short to cling to past hurts. They’d have to shout it out, her and Klaus, and it wasn’t going to be a pleasant conversation, but she thought that she might be ready for it.

She might be ready for him.

“Who says you have to?”

His smile spoke volumes.


End file.
